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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:01.20] - Josh Atkinson
I talk about uniform and a high school letterman's jacket. While you're in school, you wear it with pride to show everybody else how great you are. But the minute you graduate, nobody cares. Certifications are the patches of industry that show everybody the team you still play for.
[00:00:13.02] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. I'm your host, John Berry. Today's guest is Josh Atkinson. Josh, you are the Partner and Chief Strategy Officer of PM ProLearn. What do you do?
[00:00:24.07] - Josh Atkinson
What do I do? That's a great question. The Chief Strategy Officer name came when we incorporated as a business and I needed a C-suite title, and we weren't quite sure what to call it. My job has always been the growth and strategy of the company of who's our customer, how do we serve them? How do we really help the Veteran community? Because of that, it was like, well, it's not COO, it's not CEO, it's not chief revenue. What exactly is it that I do? We came with this chief strategy officer after using some internet searching, which I think frames a lot of the role. But my goal is to really set the vision and direction of the company in a military context on future plans, part of the business. That says, where are we going to head? To date, what we do is we're trying to help the integration of professional certifications and project management into the military community. From my own story, I didn't get to retire like I wanted to, but thankfully, somebody introduced me to Lean Six Sigma and PMP while on active duty. I saw their impact that learning and using industry best practices had for my military career.
[00:01:27.08] - Josh Atkinson
Then in transition, I saw that being certified as a professional helped me bridge this, really the credibility gap, I call it when you leave the military. It's not a capability gap, it's a credibility gap. So now I was seen as a professional in the eyes of industry and employers, even on the job site as a construction project manager. I was given a respect I didn't really know I needed. So that set the foundation of our business, which is why are we not teaching these things? Why are we not exposing Veterans to industry best practices while they're in uniform so we can help make sure they're set up for success?
[00:02:00.00] - John S. Berry
I think some ways we are, though, right? I mean, if you run any complex operation, you have your sync matrix, your synchronization matrix, you have Gantt charts for contractors, you see all these things. But what you're saying is you may be exposed to them, but you're not really mastering them and understanding there are other outside techniques that apply as well. Is that what you're saying?
[00:02:19.07] - Josh Atkinson
100 %. And also, what do you call it? Now, if you're in a direct support role like medical or law in your case, or logistics and supply, you have sometimes a transferable skill. But if I'm combat arms, if I'm an artillery man, if I'm a tanker, if I'm a tracker, if I'm an infantry, what job roles are out there? I think a lot of Veterans get thrown into the, well, you can become an FBI agent, you can become a cop, go work in private security. But yet the mission planning leadership mindset of every infantryman is really around projects. It's a project focus; it's a mission focus. But if you don't get taught how to tell that story, if you don't get taught how to translate that language, how can you convince somebody to hire you for a role that you can't talk about, that you don't even understand exists. So yeah, you're spot on. You use these things, you see these things. You might hear the buzzwords, but do you really understand what that means? Do you really understand how to apply that for yourself?
[00:03:15.01] - John S. Berry
Yeah, and I think that that's crucial because when we come out of the military, we may have some skills, but to be able to have the skills that we need to succeed in the civilian world are a little different. I've talked to 30-year jag lawyers who get out, and they're having a difficulty finding a because a lot of these big law firms are saying, well, we really like that you have all this breadth of experience, but you have no depth. That's one of the things the military does a great job with is it gets us a lot of broadening assignments. I mean, at least I don't know how the Marine Corps was for you, but in the army, in the Infantry, when I went in, you knew logistics because at some point, you were going to be an executive officer. You were going to help the first sergeant with logistics at the company level. At some point, you might be the S4 If you weren't the S4, you were working on a staff with the S4. So, you had the opportunity to get that exposure, but sometimes not the depth. So when you were trying to get the certifications, you're going a little bit deeper.
[00:04:10.06] - John S. Berry
And what you're saying is, we want that depth while they're in service.
[00:04:13.07] - Josh Atkinson
100 %. And if you look across enlisted learning, you have leadership schools every so many years. I'll use an army analogy here. You have the ALC, SLC, MLC, and then the Sergeant Major Academy. It's four distinct career schools throughout. Well, what if at the time you're going through that entry-level leader school, ALC, you learn how to do Lean Six Sigma and Process Improvement? What if at your mid-level school, you learn how to become an agilest like Scrum Master, which are just industry approaches to leader development and mission problem solving? Then at the next level school, you could become a project management professional. I get your PMP during MLC, and then by the time you go to the Sergeant Major Academy, you become a change manager. Right now, these are broad skills. They apply to every industry out there. But by incorporating these skills, you can actually become more effective by learning how industry thinks. Because velocity or I guess, speed and tempo or military concepts in terms of tactical operations. But speed and tempo or velocity now in agile are industry concepts. We're always looking at staying ahead of the enemy, your competitors in business.
[00:05:14.19] - Josh Atkinson
You're always looking at regional territory management, brand, reach, and growth. If we can teach these industry thought leadership skills now, I think you're going to use them now. You're going to be more effective now. Then in transition, I've been a professional for 5, 10, 15, 20 years with a Veteran background, not a Veteran trying to become a new professional. You already are, but if you haven't used it, can't talk about it, can't tell stories, how do I convince you that I should join your team and add value?
[00:05:42.12] - John S. Berry
And so, you come into this from the perspective of, And I like this because this is true. Look, I've hired way too many Veterans that come, right? They don't necessarily have the base skills yet. And so, what happens is your military experience, that leadership is a level on top of it, but you have to have that base level first. So, it's a huge spring into, I think, a high-level role very early in your career, but you still have to develop the base skills. I think where I've made the mistake in hiring before is, this guy was an infantry officer. He was on staff. He'll understand how to be on staff here. And it doesn't necessarily translate. Why not? Why doesn't that work?
[00:06:17.06] - Josh Atkinson
There's a Veteran friend I was talking to. He said, it's business acumen, I think, is often lacking. I mean, staff and staff have the same word, but it doesn't mean the same thing. There's another analogy I've used of looking at the military like a country. Have you looked at the DOD like being in a foreign country? In college, I studied Nationalism and Identity, and there were five elements of a country national identity. You had a border, you have conflict, you have histories and traditions, you have a language, and you have a sense of the other, people not a part of that country. As I've looked at the military, you have all of those same components. There's a base boundary. There's the conflict, the wars we go through, the training we go through, the difficulty of missing birthdays and things that we do to us together. We have history's traditions, the birthday balls, the uniforms we wear, saluting, not saluting, where you walk, not walking on grass. We have a language. Every service has their own jargon and language, and you have the other everybody who's not Veteran, everybody who didn't sign up, even in the services or not in the services.
[00:07:16.09] - Josh Atkinson
But if we take that concept, being in the military is like living in a foreign country called Veteran land, and then I leave that and I go to this other country called civilian land, they speak the same language, but the words are totally different. Staff and staff are not the same thing. Stakeholder, stakeholder, not the same thing. Project, project, not the same. They're all the same words, but they have totally different meanings. Even logistics in the military versus logistics in the civilian world are not the same thing. Logistics in the military is more project management. Logistics in industry is warehousing and supply chain. I think there's this huge language disconnect between the active component and industry, which I think you've experienced because I hired somebody to do what I thought was the exact same role, yet that role isn't the same meaning. Does that make sense?
[00:07:57.12] - John S. Berry
Absolutely. How does your company solve the problem?
[00:08:00.00] - Josh Atkinson
Well, I think training and earning a certification helps you, one, gain a new identity to claim. Because if you look at those elements of identity or nationalism, other than a border, certifications have the other four components. There's conflict. They're hard to get. I'm going to earn it in the process. There's traditions, process, doctrine, language that I'm going to learn on earning that certification. What is the proper way to do this work? There's the language component. Words have meaning. So, by earning the certification, I'm learning what language is in that profession, whether it's cybersecurity, HR, project management. This concept applies to all, I think, professional certifications or licenses in general. Then there's the other, the other people that are not certified. When you leave and go into the interview or you're talking to somebody, I get to claim the identity as a project professional. I'm not trying to become one. I am one. If I'm a certified cyber expert, I get to claim that I am a cyber expert, and I can then use proper words, proper processes, proper structure as I'm having a conversation with a civilian and professional, versus someone told me I was this, now I'm trying to become that, but I don't know what it means.
[00:09:06.07] - Josh Atkinson
I don't really understand how to tell the right story. I don't understand your process. I think another example might be going from the Marine Corps to the Air Force when you do planning. Sure, they're both DOD or Department of War now entities, but they plan differently. The words are different. The cultures are different. Even in our own service and service planning processes, they're not exactly the same, even in a range. As a Marine, sergeant is one It's an E5. You go into the army; sergeant is everybody above an E5 until you become the sergeant major or something like that. There's just different word choices, even in our own services. Our company, by helping them go through the process to get certified, teaches them the language, teaches them the foundational skills, teaches them about the breadth of what being a project manager is. It expands upon the military planning foundation they already have, but then it also helps them earn a certification that they get to carry with them after the service to then be seen as credible.
[00:10:01.11] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I think that's a great point is that you may understand the concept, but when you get into the specifics of how an organization actually operates, it's usually much different. We learn that from joint operations. When I was in Iraq, we worked in the Air Force, we worked in Marines. But I can think back, even I went to a ranger school. So me and there was this force recon gunny. It was the last patrol of mountain phase, and it was the last phase of that patrol. So they had killed off the leadership, and all we were going to do is execute the last mission. Now, Gunny and I both had our goes, which means we were going to graduate that phase. So we just assumed that we wouldn't be called on. But they put us... I was the platoon later. He was the platoon sergeant. And the plan was all jacked up. And we're at the bottom of this. They said we had to climb about another 100 feet, and then we were at least 200 meters away from the objective. And we were out of time, and I got on the radio, requested more time, denied.
[00:11:00.05] - John S. Berry
And so I'm thinking, Oh, man, we got to set up our security here, put our support by fire here, we'll put the assault element here, and we've got 20 minutes to do it. And the Marine, Gunny, he's like, No, no, that's not what we're going to do. We're just going to line everybody up, and we're going to charge the hill. So we violated all of the patrolling doctrine, but that was the way to get the mission done on time. But in my mind, I was so locked into, this is how we patrol at We got to have all those elements present to do this mission the right way, or I'm going to get a failing score. And Gunny was like, Well, we just got to complete the mission here, and this is how we're going to do it. So I think sometimes we get caught up in our own doctrine and our own stories, and Sometimes a different branch, or in this case, in civilian sector, a different company may have a much more effective, efficient way to do it that takes all the head trash out of there that we may have learned on our journey that it's got us to where we are today.
[00:11:57.01] - John S. Berry
So I'd ask you this question. That was a long preamble to, how difficult is it for members of the Veteran community, based on your experience, to make that transition? I know how to do this to say, well, you may know how to do it, but you need to learn other ways to do it to work in different organizations.
[00:12:12.12] - Josh Atkinson
I think it's very difficult, and that's a very complex question. I'm going to take two different directions. I think on the project manager side, I think there's two issues. There's project manager, and then there's project management, the discipline. I think a lot of Veterans are told, Hey, you'd be a great project manager. But what they might admire or want is really the discipline of project management. I'll take my own career. I first left the Marine Corps, got into construction, project management as a PM. It was great. I was in the field. It felt almost identical to being a loggie in the Marine Corps. Well, then I got into consulting. I was called an analyst, but I was still leading projects. I was still doing the discipline of project management, and now I'm actually in business development and sales, and I'm still doing the discipline of project management. I think we make the failed assumption that I have to pick one title, and that title is my MOS for life. I think that's a huge gap for the Veteran community because there's billets, billet titles, which are jobs, and then there's skills. I think the key thing is to figure out what are the skills that I want to employ and then find the alignment to the job title because the title could really be anything.
[00:13:17.06] - Josh Atkinson
Do I really care what you call me or do I care what I'm doing? I think Veterans get stuck on feeling like they have to say, This is what I'm going to be called so I can do this thing, versus spending time analyzing the skills they want to employ, the characteristics of a life they want to have, and then finding the right fit. That goes into the second piece. I do a class called the empowered transition, where I talk about getting the requirements right. I think we fail to explore our own individuality while we're getting out of the military to identify our passions, our purpose, our why, and the things that make us tick, the things that make us thrive, and write them down and say, I want authority, I want autonomy, I want creativity, I want variety, I want purpose, I want to be in charge of a team, I want to travel a certain amount of time, I want to work on projects that are affecting the warfighter, or I want to work on projects that are affecting this people group or this community. Without really describing our own goals, we jump into a relationship, a job, assuming that we're going to feel fulfilled, assuming that it's going to come with all these other things that we're used to just existing in the military.
[00:14:19.14] - Josh Atkinson
That, I think, goes to the complexity of it is Veterans truly need to think about their own goals, their own wants, their own definition of success, and then through networking, explore various companies. Because until I understand the culture of that company, until I understand the environment of that company, the purpose of the company, what they really do at a granular level, I don't know if I'm going to fit there, and I don't know if I'm going to like being there. But instead, we focus on titles, pay, and company, the brand. Be like, I want that. It's like, really, would you date somebody on only knowing if they're attractive, wealthy, and from a good family? Is that enough to jump into a long-term relationship, or is that enough to say, I want to know more? But Veterans jump in and go, I'm sold. I'm in. And they go, Man, this job sucks. I hate being here. It's like, why? Because you never really analyzed what you wanted. You made a lot of assumptions. I think they both go hand in hand that I have to first explore who I am and what I want. Then I also have to invest in my own job credibility so that when I'm in the role, I'm speaking the language, having professional conversations, understanding the business environment, understanding how they operate.
[00:15:19.03] - Josh Atkinson
Sorry, it's a longer answer maybe than you were expecting, but I think there's two complexities to that. And it really starts with self and then building professional credibility.
[00:15:27.23] - John S. Berry
You talked about figuring out what you want before you jump in. But here's the devil's advocate part of this. But how do you know what you want and what you don't want if you haven't done it? A lot of people want to be in the army till it's time to do army stuff. So how do you know? I mean, it's all fun and games until it's raining and you're digging in for a defensive position with your eTool and you're realizing maybe this wasn't such a great idea. How do you know when you get that job and you get that same feeling like, Oh, man, this sucks?
[00:15:56.04] - Josh Atkinson
In some ways, you don't. You won't know until you get there and you get to experience it. That's where I think being willing to say this isn't the right fit in leaving is okay. So if it's any Veteran out there listening to this, if you feel stuck in a current job, you are able to leave that job and not feel like a bad person because it's just business. You staying there longer than you need to be actually is hurting you in the company because they're not finding the right fit to take that job and thrive. But to answer your question, how do you know? I think there's things you're not going to know, but I think there's a way to say, what are the things I really like about my military career? Do I like Do I like being in the field? Do I like the last minute taskers or do I hate those things? I think you can look at your own life right now in uniform and say, I really don't like lack of stability of tasking. I want a forecasted schedule and I want structure. I don't like being outside. I don't like getting rained on.
[00:16:48.18] - Josh Atkinson
I don't mind traveling up to a certain percentage. I don't mind having responsibility. In fact, I like responsibility. I don't like when I can't influence a decision. I like it when I get to mentor people. I enjoy the fact that I can go kneecap to kneecap with somebody below me, and I really want that and I value that. I like that there's a greater purpose to my existence. I think just exploring the things in your own environment right now or a great starting point, and then you can use LinkedIn to find a fellow Veteran at the company and say, what's it like in your family? What do you do there? What's your culture like? If I wanted a job that had these attributes, what should I be looking for? And you may surprise yourself. You may be focused towards a job that you'd never considered even something remotely possible for you. And in parallel to that, I think there's certain self-awareness things you can do. Clinton strengths is a great self-discovery assessment. It gives you your top five natural strengths out of 32 characteristics to say, here's how you're naturally wired. Myers' Briggs is a personality test.
[00:17:49.03] - Josh Atkinson
It's a great way. But don't just do the basic, do the percentage breakdown of like, Hey, I'm mostly extrovert, but some introvert. So again, knowing how you're wired, how you think. Disk is another profile. Enneagram is another one that's out And then Discover Your Why by Simon Sinek is a great program to help you write your life mission statement. And I tell Veterans all the time, if you're not fulfilling that mission in your job, you're going to need to fill it somewhere because you are wired for a purpose. And that helps you understand, this is my existence, this is why I exist. And I'll tell my own story. I went into construction, which by my Clifton strengths and my personality was a perfect role. Absolutely perfect. Extraverted, optimization, efficiency, maximizing, getting job done. It was a great role. But my purpose is really people I haven't. My why is about helping people become better. And in construction, I didn't have that purpose. I didn't have that fulfillment. But then when I got into consulting, I got to do both. I got to help people. I got to help the organization. I got to make change and affect influence.
[00:18:44.23] - Josh Atkinson
And now, because of what PM ProLearn does, even though I'm working in sales, which I said I never wanted when I left the Marine Corps, I said, I will never do sales. Our purpose is helping Veterans grow and giving them a better life. So, I love what I get to do because it still aligns with my strengths, it aligns with my personality, and it aligns my why and my purpose. So, until you understand even those things, it's really hard to know, Will I fit here? And those are things anybody can take now. I mean, Myers & Briggs is free, Dist is free, Clift and Strength, I think, is $20, and the Discover Your Why, I think, is $65 right now or something a lot cheaper for Veterans through Simon Sinek. So these are just things to invest in now.
[00:19:22.01] - John S. Berry
Great. So, this takes us to the after-action review. Josh, tell us about your example of great leadership and horrible leadership. You don't have to name names, but let's learn from the lesson that you got. Let's get the cheap lesson here.
[00:19:33.16] - Josh Atkinson
All right. Great leadership to me comes from clear vision and trust. I've had it happen a few times working on the Marine Corps and off that my last job in the Marine Corps is the division feature planner. My boss came in and said, just run. He's like, tell me where you're going. Let me know who to defend and go. He gave me his intent, and he trusted me to run. He said, you've proven and earned your trust, so I just want you to go. And that, to me, meant a lot because I'm a creative. I like to make a change. I want to go. And he's like, I trust you. Just go. He gave me his intent and let me run. Same thing now with the CEO of PM ProLearn. When we started, it's like, hey, I'm just going to try. He's like, just go. I trust you. Just go. It earned his trust. And it's freeing when I have that to be trusted. And at the same extreme, I look back in my career and where I feel suffocated is when someone says, do it the way I want it done and just do what you're told.
[00:20:34.04] - Josh Atkinson
That's for me. It's my own personality. The failures of leadership on the other side are when you're not given any trust and no freedom to think, and you're just controlled and micromanaged. I mean, ultimately, that led to actually eight people getting killed working for that CEO because he didn't let anybody run. He had no trust of anybody. He wanted everybody to do exactly what he wanted and wanted to hear how great he was. So on both extremes, the great leadership to me was trust and freedom and running. And the worst was the opposite, micromanagement control with no intellect and no creativity.
[00:21:05.22] - John S. Berry
Yeah, and the army mission statement, we talk about the who, what, when, where, and why. We never give the how. That's usually we don't know the how. And that was one of the jokes about Soviet doctrine was When we studied it, we always knew what they were going to do, but they never knew what we were going to do because we didn't know what we were going to do. But there is something about hiring somebody, putting in a position saying, This is your mission. Here's your left and right limit. Go do Yeah, I agree. The best leaders I've had have done that, and the worst leaders have been the micromanagers who wanted to tell you exactly how to do things every time.
[00:21:40.04] - Josh Atkinson
Yeah, and that's a challenge.
[00:21:41.19] - John S. Berry
Is the bad example the micromanager or you got another bad example?
[00:21:44.20] - Josh Atkinson
No, to me, it's the bad example. The micromanager who won't listen and won't trust. The people that just want to hear their own yes afterwards. I think even in the military, if you look at the war years, the start was just go. We had no idea what to do. But the end became compliance because we had scripts and we had cameras and we had all this new technology that I think later on it stopped being about just go. The intent was don't screw up. I think it changed, and I think changed the culture of the military to where it stopped being as creative. I mean, how many people say, go fail and I'll back you right now? How many leaders say, I'm willing to let you go figure out however you want to do it within this intent, and if you mess up, I'm going to protect you? I don't think we really have that culture as much anymore. I think we're trying to get that back as we look at the future fight with China or Russia, where that's going to come from. It's not going to be a scripted fight. It's going to be an absolutely chaotic mess, and we've got to get people to trust again.
[00:22:39.13] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I think early on in the growth phase of any business as well, it is very much, Hey, go kill something Let's figure this out. But as you grow, it becomes very much like the difference between a train up and say a deployment. In the train up, as a captain, I had lieutenants, and they would say, Hey, I'm going to go do this. This is my plan. I'd be like, Are you sure you want to do Are you sure, Lieutenant? And if they said yes, I'd let them go do it. But then now you're in Iraq, and the danger is real. And now you say, No, that's not a good plan. You're not going to do that. And I think it depends on the stakes. And I found this in business as well. And this is one area where I really struggle. There are real dollars. And for us, we have clients, real clients, where the work we do sometimes is irreversible. If we lose, it will affect the client's life, possibly forever. So the stakes are so high that as a leaner, it's very hard to say, Okay, hey, go ahead and fail. Because when someone says, Hey, here's my future, we're trusting you and your company to take it, failure is not an option.
[00:23:44.03] - John S. Berry
Sometimes it happens, but we're not looking at it going, Well, it's going to be okay if we fail. No, we can't fail. Someone trusts us. Or financially, with the future of the company, we can't make bad bets over and over again. If we fail, it's okay to lose money here and there. But obviously, you don't They don't want to bet the company on a really bad decision. So how do you temper that? We want to not be the bad leader, but how do we temper giving people enough, I think, latitude to do their job, but also protecting the organization. Because if we don't protect the organization, then we won't exist anymore.
[00:24:22.13] - Josh Atkinson
It goes out of military like you talked about with training, which is you can fail within this box, you can't fail in this box. So even in your own world, like an illegal side, Hey, I want you to run this on your own. I'm not going to tell you how, then get it back to me and I'm going to look at it. I'll give you some pointers and tips. And after a couple of iterations, you go, I trust that you can run, but you still have a quality assurance, quality check on some things. I'd say, I'm not just going to let you run independently. That's my struggle is actually to put that check on the end instead of saying, I trust you, go, because I like the independence and I want to just figure it out. But I'm a little too hands-off as a leader sometimes, and I don't do enough of the I need to teach you what's already in my head and what may be natural to me may not be natural to you. To actually invest in training people with standards and process and say, This is what right looks like. Okay, now go.
[00:25:10.16] - Josh Atkinson
Then before you just let them run, let them earn it. Now on our instructor side, for our certification instructors, we do a full observe, teach, teach under observation, then they're allowed to go. We're very clear on that side. Now it's on me on the sales side, how to develop a sales or come client advisor. How do I develop an advisor to run an understand all the nuances there. That's our phase of growth, and I'm learning as well on that end, that you have to train them. You have to teach them what it looks like and then trust that they will perform because you can't be everywhere. I mean, this is a business owner. You can't do everything. You can't be the only one touching the client. You have to train people how to do that.
[00:25:47.08] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I think that's a great point. Either way, you're going to be mitigating risk, and that's our job as leaders. Joshua Atkinson, where can veterans learn more about you and where can they learn more about PM Pro learn.
[00:26:01.18] - Josh Atkinson
I'm on LinkedIn as my happy spot. It's on your social media. You can find me on LinkedIn, Joshua J Atkinson, and look me up, PM ProLearn on the web, www. Pm-prolearn. Com. Find us. Find us on social media if you want to on LinkedIn, on Facebook, and be out there, really engaged and have questions. Again, our vision is bringing project management training and certifications to our leadership on active duty or in the guard or in the reserve. There's so many free funding sources out there to pay for it. Unit Funding, Army Credentialing, AFCool, Coast Guard Credentialing, GI Bill Now Pays for Search, VokeRehab Pays for Search. If you're a dependent, Chapter 35 Pays for Certifications, too. There's so many federal programs that will pay for what we're doing. Just reach out. Shoot me a note. You can also email me, jadkinson@pm-prome learn. Com. I will answer. I'm not out here crazy going. I have an aid. It's just me. But reach out, follow us, send us a note.
[00:26:56.03] - John S. Berry
Great. I absolutely love the thought that, Hey, we We're not only getting best practices for active duty here. There's more than one way to do it. We want to see how the private sector, the civilian sector is doing what they do so well. So we're bringing that into the military. But then you also then have those skills with you when you leave the military. And I think that's the biggest misconception is once you leave the military, you keep the capabilities. You may lose the rank, you may lose the uniform, you may lose the title, but you never lose those capabilities. And so I think what you and your team are doing, Josh, is great because it's Not only is it making our military stronger and better, but it is making our veterans stronger and better by providing them that opportunity. So thank you so much for what you do. And for a Veteran that is looking for more opportunities, what is your best advice? They're going to get out of service. What's the best inventory? What's the best thing they can do to start planning for their future?
[00:27:53.07] - Josh Atkinson
Start now. Right? Waiting until TAP is like waiting until you're 17 to learn how to leave home. Right? You need to learn now. Invest now and do something. Invest in a certification, to me, at any level out there, get a certification, take a class. They're like a week long, but start now and invest in yourself. Some people say just network. Yes, you need to network, but you still have to be credible. It's not enough to just network. Don't wait until the end because it will come up very, very fast. Then that last six months or last year, you're trying to figure out who you are, where do you want to go, go into VA appointments and doing everything else. The best time to invest in yourself is today. Do it now, invest now, use it now, and be set up for success later. So best advice, don't wait, start today. And if you're late, start today anyway. It's okay to start now, even if you've missed the start. The gun went off six months ago. Start running now. Don't wait. Just get involved.
[00:28:48.01] - John S. Berry
Josh, should I leave anything out? Anything else you want to cover?
[00:28:50.19] - Josh Atkinson
No, I have a meme. I talk about a uniform in a high school letterman's jacket as an analogy. That while you're in school, you wear it with pride to show everybody else how great you are, but the minute you graduate, nobody cares. Certifications are the patches of industry that show everybody the team you still play for. I think that's so important when we talk about licenses and certifications because you wear it. You're a licensed lawyer. That means I'm allowed to practice law. If I went to law school without a license, I'm nobody. I'm just a school-trained law student. When you talk about certifications and licenses, I think that's a huge benefit for veterans because it gives you a credibility to keep showing industry afterwards.
[00:29:33.02] - John S. Berry
No, I think that's great. And I think the other side of it is this. The other side of it is if you're still wearing your high school letterman's jacket around, you're a loser. And I think in the military, it's nobody cares what rank you were. Nobody cares about what you... They just know you served. And for a lot of people, that's usually enough. And so you have to look at what matters today. So stop wearing that high school letterman's jacket and wear the jacket with the What were the real certifications that you need today as opposed to the certifications you had yesterday?
[00:30:04.17] - Josh Atkinson
A hundred %. A hundred %.
[00:30:07.09] - John S. Berry
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we seek to help Veterans build an even bigger, better future after military service. Unfortunately for some of our Veterans, the roadblock to a better future is that they are not receiving all of the benefits that they earned. If you need help appealing a VA disability decision, contact Berry Law.